Choosing life, happiness, peace and joy. Oh and weight loss too

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Gastric Bypass

When you have weighed as much as I have, you get this really weird idea of what you look like. The longer you are big, the more out of perception your idea of yourself becomes.

When buying clothing, you will automatically pick something way too big for you.

When parking, you will give yourself way more space than you actually need.

When thinking of going out, you will worry about fitting into chairs etc.

Airplanes and cinema seats fill you with dread.

It really can be more exhausting than I can ever explain.

All because that is how much space your body takes up in your own head.

Now that I have lost weight – I find that my perception of how big I am is still way off. Actually losing weight is not enough – because in my head I still take up way too much space.

For some reason, getting fit and being fit seems to mean more to the big me in my brain than what a scale says.

That being said – getting fit, being fit, and making all of that a priority in a life that has never been fit is freaking hard. The best of intentions fall by the wayside.

So I had a Fuck It moment yesterday. Inspired by my own self. And the gentle coaxing of fabulous friends.

I am going to be doing Adventure Boot Camp from 1 June 2015. Even though it scares the bananas out of me. Even though it is a commitment to 5 days a week of hard graft. Even through my lazy, frighted ass is trying very hard to rationalize to my fat self why I shouldn’t. Couldn’t. Don’t.

Because Fuck It I need to.

Fuck It, I want to weigh less.

And Fuck It – if I can run, if I can do that one thing that other people take for granted, then my brain will know.

So 2 years ago give or take a month, I had a gastric bypass.
Basically I had my stomach (internally) made smaller and a whole bunch of intestine bypassed.

A whole mess of people have said that I should have done it the ‘old fashioned way’ and a slightly smaller mass of less polite people have flat out said I took the easy way out .

And every single one of these people are thin. Maybe not supermodel thin, but thin none the less.

So here is the answer to them that they cannot seem to understand.

1. Fat runs in our family. I know that sounds like a cliché but, and it is a big but, that doesn’t make it untrue. We go back generations and on both sides of a familial line. 90% of my gene is fat. The other 10% is my red hair… 🙂

2. I did try it the ‘old fashioned way’. And it worked to a degree. But no matter how many mountains I climbed (please note, fat does not mean unfit), how many small meals I ate, how much I went to the gym, the weight only went down so far and then plateau became my best friend.

3. I got sick somewhere in all of number 2 above and got put on a whole banana boat worth of cortisone. Sjoe I was so swollen my lips split open. For those of you who don’t know – cortisone = swollen and usually = heavy duty weight gain.

4. At my biggest I was 170kg. People who didn’t understand the illness and what cortisone does to you, judged me continuously. Friends and strangers alike. I cannot begin to describe to you what weighing that much, being that sick and being judged does to a self-esteem. It is probably easier to just say there was no self-esteem.

5. I got the gastric bypass to save my life. My life. Very important and often misplaced words. My life. The one I have to live. The one I inhabit and make my own. My life.

I have lost 70kg and I want to lose another 30. However, if I don’t that is fine too. Because along the way I realized that I don’t need to be thin. I need to be happy. Free from caring what others think of me.

Alone in my space and at peace.

That is all any of us need. So the next time you feel a need to pass judgment on what you perceive to be ugly, deformed, disabled, fat – just stop a moment. And be alone in your own space, at peace. And afford that gift to others.

It has taken me a good long while to decide to write again. Life happened and writing fell away. Time changed all sorts of circumstances and the world kept turning.

Sometimes it felt like it didn’t. But it did.

My walk along the ‘gastric bypass’ highway has been freaking hard. Portion control becomes the be all and the end all of everything. The entirety of my being revolved around what I could or couldn’t eat, would I would or wouldn’t tolerate. Lets not even mention the pressure to lose. Because if you don’t? Well that is just a whole new level of failure.

However, much like any diet, it is neigh on impossible to eat like that for eternity. Human nature kicks in. A chip here, a biscuit there and voila – plateau.

I have managed to lose almost 70 kg. Almost. The ‘almost’ part of things makes me feel better. It is not the truth though. Almost is not where I wanted to be. It is not thin. And all my waffling about accepting who I am and thin not being the be all and end all?

Was true. But was not the only truth. The entirety of it is that I want to be smaller. I want to fit into regular clothing. I want to run and not have bits jiggle more than they should in places that they shouldn’t.

So I have dreamed a new dream. I started jogging. Oh so ever slowly. 5 minute warm up, 60 seconds run, 90 seconds walk, repeat for 20 minutes, 5 minute cool down. It probably doesn’t sound like much. But for a reformed ‘fatty’ this is huge.

It is also not the only exercise I do. Having recently adopted 2 bundles of furry fluffiness, walking puppies at least 40 minutes a day has become commonplace. But I don’t know that I can consider that as just exercise. The therapy? The joy? The love? The laughter?

Priceless.

I hope to write more often. I hope to find the same peace I have always found in the written word. There is a joy and a calm in formulating sentences, phrases, paragraphs. It forces me into the calm places in my head.